If I Only Had A...Husband (The Bridal Circle #1) Read online

  “Not at all,” Alex said. “I just thought you needed to strengthen your argument that the wizard was a tragic hero. Maybe insert some more references from classical works.”

  No matter what Alex said, the paper looked the same as her schoolwork had all along—covered with red ink. “This is hopeless, isn’t it?” she said. “I’m not going to be invited to speak at that symposium.”

  He took her hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. “If it’s important to you, then you should try. I don’t know whether you’ll get invited after all your work, but I do know that if you don’t do the work, you definitely won’t get invited.”

  She smiled at him and reached over to plant a quick kiss on his cheek. “You’re right, as usual. I need to quit griping and start revising. What do you think about adding more biographical data from Baum’s life?”

  “That would work and—”

  “Well, look who’s here.”

  Penny looked up, her heart practically stopping. It was Brad.

  “Hi, Brad,” Alex greeted him. “How are you?”

  What in the world was he doing here?

  What did it matter? Penny scrambled to gather up her notes and shove them into her folder before he could see them. This was the most unbelieveably rotten timing.

  “Hi, Brad,” she said once her things were hidden.

  “I can’t believe the coincidence,” Brad remarked as he sat down at the table with them. “I was in the mood for some good old Pizza Prince pizza and who should I run into but you two?”

  “Was Pizza Prince here when you were still living in town?” Alex asked.

  “No, it’s only been here five years,” Penny replied.

  “Really?” Brad just leaned back in his chair with a bright smile. “Imagine that.”

  Penny had a number of things she’d like to imagine. Brad being chased out of town by Junior. Brad being soundly trounced by Alex. Brad crawling on his knees to tell her he loved her. Now, where had that image come from?

  “How did you get here?” Penny asked him. “I thought the Jeep had died.”

  “Nope, started right up again. Just like magic. Hey, aren’t you eating this?” Brad asked.

  “The Jeep sounds like a tank approaching,” Penny said. “I didn’t hear it.”

  Brad smiled as he helped himself to a slice of cold pizza. “Guess it just needed a little exercise to get rid of the roughness. Hmm, this pizza’s the best.” He looked around as if captivated by the Formica decor “You guys don’t mind that I joined you, do you?”

  Penny just sighed. Why was he so damn good-looking? No, that wasn’t it. Alex was good-looking and did nothing to her heart. Was it just habit? Maybe her heart had a serious defect and she was particularly susceptible to blue-eyed charmers.

  Alex was watching her with an odd look in his eyes. She wasn’t sure what he was trying to tell her. That she should be more welcoming? No, it wasn’t a scolding kind of look. It was more thoughtful, more wondering. Probably he was just wondering now she wanted to play this Which was a good question. How did she want to play this? Should she ask Brad to leave or just tell him?

  But one look at Brad’s smile and she seemed to have no choice but to give in. The man was just outrageous. “No, it’s fine,” she assured him with a sigh. “And help yourself to the pizza. We got to talking and it got cold.”

  “Nothing wrong with cold pizza,” Brad said.

  “True enough,” Alex said and took a piece himself. “In fact, I think some of the things that have been left to age are the sweetest and truest.”

  Penny helped herself to some pizza, without having the slightest clue as to what Alex was talking about. “Was just about to say that myself,” she agreed anyway. “Nothing like aged soda. Nice and flat.”

  Alex laughed and leaned back in his chair. “So, Brad. What have you been doing with yourself?”

  Brad shrugged. “This and that.”

  “Nice watch,” Alex said with a nod toward Brad’s wrist.

  “Thanks.” But Brad moved his arm so Penny could barely see the watch.

  She frowned. Why had Alex done that? She had caught a glimpse of Brad’s watch before—gold in some parts and silver in others where the gold plating must have worn off. He couldn’t even afford one of those expensive Timex sport watches like she had. It wasn’t like Alex to call attention to something like that.

  “Did you get your stuff from Toto?” she asked quickly. “Was anything else damaged?”

  “Looked fine.” He didn’t seem to realize she’d been trying to change the subject. “Say, was that your truck out front, Penny? I saw it when I pulled in, but I didn’t think it could be. Where I come from, a man drives a lady when he takes her out.”

  Penny just blinked at him. So much for trying to ease his discomfort! “It didn’t make any sense for Alex to drive all the way out to the farm,” she informed him. “Not when we were going to a restaurant just a few blocks from his house. We always meet here on Thursday.”

  “A gentleman doesn’t do what’s sensible. He does what’s right.”

  “Oh, give me a break,” Penny said. “Since when does driving a few miles out of the way become right, and saving time and gas become wrong?”

  “What—he doesn’t make enough money for the gas out to your place?”

  “He makes plenty of money. He just doesn’t choose to waste it.”

  “How can ensuring your safety be wasteful?”

  Laughter interrupted them. Alex was laughing harder than she’d ever seen him laugh before. He was laughing so hard he didn’t seem able to talk. Penny just glared at him.

  Finally, wiping his eyes with his linen handkerchief, he got to his feet. “I hate to miss any of this debate, but I really must get home. Penny, it’s been a delight as always. Brad, can I assume you will see her safely home?”

  Penny stared at him, unable to form a response. Unable to even figure out what her response should be. To laugh with him? To tell him off? To fire him as her learning coach? She ended up not saying anything, just watching him stop at the counter to pay the check and then walk out.

  “Well, that should tell you something,” Brad said

  She spun to frown at him. “What? That you’re rude and boorish?”

  “At least I have a sense of responsibility.”

  “Oh, spare me your lectures.” She went over to the counter and got a pizza box for the leftovers, then tossed the remaining pieces into it. Gran would be in seventh heaven. Breakfast for the next few days. “You have no right to come barging in here and bossing people around.”

  “I didn’t boss anybody around. I merely made a few comments.”

  “That you had no business making.” She grabbed up her folder, her purse and the pizza box. “I’m leaving. And I’d prefer if you didn’t follow me home. I just might give in to temptation and run you off the road.”

  “I can’t help it if I have a different set of standards.” He got to his feet.

  She gave him a look. “I mean it. Don’t tempt me.”

  He stood a moment and glared at her, meeting her angry look square on. “Fine. I wanted to talk to Dorothy anyway. Can you at least tell me where she lives?”

  Dorothy? Damn. Her anger vanished, replaced by a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Just because he hadn’t mentioned Dorothy, she was letting herself forget the real reason he was back in Chesterton—to get his true love. He was so clever, he wouldn’t mention her on purpose, just to fool everyone. That’s what he had done in the past, too. And she had known. Everyone had known.

  But she was smarter now. “Dorothy’s not home,” Penny said and tried to think quickly. “She’s never home on Thursday nights.”

  He shrugged. “Fine, I’ll talk to her tomorrow.”

  Damn. “You can’t.”

  “I can’t?”

  Penny took a deep breath, letting her brain scramble for some semblance of rationality. “That’s not exactly what I meant,” she said and smiled at him, hoping
to dazzle him.

  He didn’t look particularly dazzled. “What did you mean, then?”

  She clutched the pizza box. “Well, since it looks like you’re going to be around for a few days, I was kind of hoping you could give me a hand.”

  “Sure,” he said, his voice easy though his eyes were still wary. “With what?”

  With what? With what? “Uh, with the office.” Yes, that was it. She hurried on. “We’ve been so busy with the storm damage. Gran usually does just fine with the regular office work but she had hip surgery last month and still has to take it easy. And the air conditioner broke in the trailer and it’s way too hot for her to be out there.”

  She hoped she hadn’t overdone it, but the look on his face assured her she hadn’t. Those blue eyes were just overflowing with worry and concern. She felt just a twinge of guilt.

  “Why didn’t you say earlier?” he said, taking her arm and walking with her to the door. “You must be exhausted, carrying the load of the business and worrying about Aunty Em.”

  “I guess. Sometimes anyway.”

  They headed outside, trading the cool air-conditioning for the muggy warmth of the summer night. His hand on her arm felt good, felt right. Felt all too reassuring.

  A slightly larger squiggle of guilt tried to raise its bead but she refused to notice it. Gran had had hip surgery and it was unfair to expect her to handle the deluge of work. None of that was a lie. Penny wasn’t doing this just to keep him away from Dorothy. Well, not entirely.

  They stopped by her truck. She was close to him, close enough to breathe in the woodsy scent of his aftershave. Close enough to feel dwarfed by the breadth of his shoulders. The night was suddenly soft and embracing, the warmth a caress.

  Penny swallowed hard. “I really appreciate your helping us out,” she said. For some reason her voice came out quiet and breathless.

  “No problem. That’s what friends are for.”

  Friends. But that slow warmth growing inside her didn’t feel exactly friendly. And she’d never felt such weakness in her knees around friends.

  The stillness seemed to hit him, too, because he didn’t move away. Shadows covered his face but she knew he was watching her, reading her heart and for the moment she didn’t worry about what he might see. She didn’t think at all, just reached up slightly and let her lips touch his.

  The kiss the other night had been an accident, this was deliberate. But it was a fire all the same. It was scorching and electric and consuming. The heat raced through her, a blaze that she had never known, so strong and so demanding. She leaned closer to him, his hands came up slowly to take her shoulders, to pull her even nearer.

  But all she felt pressed against her chest was the solid wall of the pizza box.

  Lordy, what was she doing?

  She pulled back, trying not to gasp audibly for breath. Hoping he couldn’t hear the frantic pounding of her heart that seemed to drown out all thought. “The pizza’s getting cold,” she said. “I’d better get going.”

  “Sure.” He let go of her shoulders.

  For a split second, her knees protested, her heart screamed to lay back in his arms, to rest in his embrace. But two split seconds later, her head was in control again.

  “I’ll see you later,” she said.

  “In your rearview mirror.”

  “Right.” Oh, Lord, she’d forgotten. He was coming home now. She was going to have to face him in the bright light of the kitchen.

  For a moment she was tempted to tell him where Dorothy lived, but the temptation passed. No, she could face him, in bright lights or no lights, and he wouldn’t read a thing in her eyes.

  Not that she used to love him. Not that she used to dream of him. Not that her heart still melted when he looked at her.

  Certainly not that.

  Chapter Five

  “So, that’s the setup,” Penny said.

  Brad looked around the trailer that was the nursery’s office. If he had nightmares, this place would figure largely in them from now on. Although it was barely eight o’clock, it was already like an oven inside. The floor fan did nothing but move hot, stale air around.

  The desk was piled high with papers, some yellowing with age. The map on the wall was dotted with colored pins, and the computer in the corner was an antique. He’d been in worse, though.

  He turned back to Penny, standing tall and beautiful in jeans and a T-shirt. She looked uneasy here in the trailer’s close quarters, and not because she thought that stack of work orders was going to fall on her. No, she looked as if last night’s kiss had kept her as sleepless as it had him.

  He had spent long hours dreaming of kissing her, but that had been years ago. A lifetime ago. Yet he’d been in town barely thirty-six hours and already he’d kissed her twice. It was almost funny, this success that came only after he’d vowed he was never letting himself get close to anyone again. That he was never letting his heart get so tied up by anyone as it had been tied up by Penny all those years ago. He forced himself to concentrate on what he’d come to Chesterton to do.

  “Any questions?” Penny asked.

  “Yeah. What’s Alex’s appeal?”

  She just stared at him. That obviously wasn’t the question she had expected. “What brought that up?”

  “I’m curious,” he said. “I could see why the girls liked him in high school when he was wild and exciting, but he’s dull and lifeless now. What do you see in him?”

  “I don’t see why I have to explain anything,” she snapped. “I might be curious about you but you don’t find me asking personal questions, do you?”

  “You could.” The tightening of her lips egged him on. “We’ll take turns. Ask me anything you like.”

  She looked torn. She looked like she wanted to turn on her heel and stomp out of the trailer. But she also looked like she had thought of a question.

  “Why haven’t you ever married?” she asked.

  At least it was an easy one. “Some people aren’t the marrying sort,” he said, but not about to tell her why. No need to relive those awful times of desperate longing for her while he’d lived here and then the even worse loneliness of being without her once he’d moved. “I like being on my own.”

  “Don’t you get lonely?”

  “I have friends.”

  “But that’s not the same.”

  “Exactly,” he said. “You don’t have to open up every facet of your soul to a friend. You can share what’s shareable, and keep private what’s not.”

  “Such as?”

  “That’s your third question, you know,” he said, just to remind her this was a trade, but then he went on. “There are some things you just don’t share with others. Things like your feelings. Your fears. Your dreams.”

  She sat on the edge of the desk, shaking her head slowly. “But those are the very things you want to share in a relationship. Sharing those is what makes it a relationship.” She looked at him a long silent moment, her lips twisting thoughtfully. “You know what I think? I think you got so used to hiding those things when you were a kid, you just don’t know how to share them now.”

  “I think it’s my turn to ask the questions. What’s Alex’s appeal?”

  She wanted to leave, he could see that, but she just raised her chin slightly and looked Brad straight in the eye. “He’s smart.”

  “He’s smart?” Brad couldn’t believe she’d actually said that. “What kind of a reason is that to find someone attractive?”

  “Better than finding them attractive just because you did when you were a kid.”

  He felt a twinge as that arrow hit its mark. She had known about his crush on her back then, and she obviously sensed that he was finding it hard to be around her now.

  “What happened to dating for companionship?” he asked, hoping he sounded unaffected.

  “And that’s your third question.” She got to her feet with a bright smile and picked up a clipboard off the counter. “Nothing’s happened to datin
g for companionship. It’s just that some people are more companionable than others.” With a wave, she opened the door. “Have a good day.”

  He sank into the desk chair. He thought he had been so circumspect as a kid, making friends with Dorothy and working at the nursery just to be near Penny. Yet all the time she had known. She had known that he had loved her. A sick feeling settled in the pit of his stomach.

  He wasn’t worried that she had laughed at him, Penny wasn’t like that. No, that sick feeling was more a fear of something worse—that she had felt sorry for him. That she had pitied him.

  He turned on the computer, more as a distraction than anything else. It worked, distracting him plenty. The system was older than Santa Claus and slower than frozen molasses in January. He backed the chair up and looked at the unit more closely.

  He could fix this thing in no time. Penny would go back to using an abacus before she’d let him buy her a new unit, but she didn’t have to know. Not if he just added a few chips for speed and some for memory. And a nice big hard drive. It would pay her back for letting him stay here. It would show her—when she discovered it long after he was gone—that he wasn’t an object of pity.

  Brad reached for the phone book and flipped through the listings of computer accessory stores. He made a few calls, found what he wanted at a store in Chicago, and arranged for them to deliver it to the nursery before noon. Good old smart Alex’s response probably would have been to write her a poem about it.

  The crack should have made him feel better, but didn’t.

  A framed picture of Penny and her dad on the wall caught his eye and he walked over to look at it. It had been taken back in junior high school when their class had put on the Wizard of Oz at the town’s festival. Work hadn’t left him time to be in the production, but Penny had played the Scarecrow and had been wonderful. Her father had sure adored her.

  “You’re a smart kid,” Mr. Donnelly said to Brad after he’d gotten the garden sprinkler working again. “How are your grades in school?”

  Brad didn’t know what the man was getting at and answered cautiously. “Pretty good.”